Compelling Love

David, who trusted in the coming Messiah, writes about God’s faithful love and forgiveness in removing our transgressions from us,  in Psalm 103:

¹ My soul, praise Yahweh,
and all that is within me, praise His holy name.
² My soul, praise the Lord,
and do not forget all His benefits.
³ He forgives all your sin;
He heals all your diseases.
⁴ He redeems your life from the Pit;
He crowns you with faithful love and compassion.
⁵ He satisfies you with goodness;
your youth is renewed like the eagle.

¹⁰ He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve
or repaid us according to our offenses.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His faithful love
toward those who fear Him.
¹² As far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed
our transgressions from us.
¹³ As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

Yeshua, Jesus, explains that he is the way to the Father, the only way to be reconciled to God:

John 14
¹ “Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. ³ If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also. ⁴ You know the way to where I am going.”
⁵ “Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where You’re going. How can we know the way?”
⁶ Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Yeshua, Jesus, teaches about being reconciled to God through him, and living fruitfully as his followers and friends:

John 15
⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. ⁷ If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. ⁸ My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples.
⁹ “As the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Remain in My love. ¹⁰ If you keep My commands you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love.
¹¹ “I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. ¹² This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are My friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ I do not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. ¹⁶ You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. ¹⁷ This is what I command you: Love one another.

Shaul (Paul) writes about giving all that we are to God, as a living sacrifice.  This is our spiritual worship.  How are we to do this?

Romans 12
¹ Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

It is the joy and privilege of all who are reconciled to God through Christ to live for him, as Shaul, Paul, explains in 2 Corinthians 5:

¹⁴ For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If One died for all, then all died. ¹⁵ And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised.
¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. ¹⁸ Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us.
²⁰ Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” ²¹ He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Shaul, Paul, teaches that by the blood of the Messiah, both Jews and Gentiles are reconciled to God through the cross, to become one new humanity.  Through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father:

Ephesians 2
¹³ But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah. ¹⁴ For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In His flesh, ¹⁵ He made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that He might create in Himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. ¹⁶ He did this so that He might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross and put the hostility to death by it. ¹⁷ When the Messiah came, He proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸ For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

David Krause, dhkrause@neteze.com, https://compellinglove.net/, 9/15/2013

 (Bible Quotations are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.)